This invention relates to a connector. In particular, it relates to an electrical connector of the type used in microwave applications to connect, for instance, an instrument to a microwave or UHF coaxial cable.
Microwave coaxial connectors generally take the form of a hollow tubular connector surrounding and co-axial with an elongate central pin. The ratio of the diameters of the pin and the tube is kept to a particular chosen value dependent upon the electrical uses, but the diameter of the tube is chosen from several standardised values. The smaller the tube diameter, the higher the maximum permissible frequency of operation, but the less the mechanical durability of the connector. For most high frequency operations such connectors are adequate but when used in an application where many repeated connections are required such connectors can break with repeated handling.
A ruggedised system is known and comprises respective male and female connectors. The male connector includes a central pin having a narrowed end section surrounded by a tube, generally of 3.5 mm diameter. An outer nut, retained by the tube but rotatable thereon is provided and has an external 7 mm screw thread. The female connector of this ruggedised type of the prior art also includes a central pin which has a hollow section at its end for receiving the narrowed section of the male pin. This is again surrounded by a 3.5 mm tube and coaxially by a nut having a 7 mm internal thread which is adapted to co-operate with the equivalent male nut. Since the 7 mm type of nut can be considerably stronger than the more fragile 3.5 mm one a stronger more rugged connector is formed.
However, a major problem with this type of rugged connector is in its poor repeatability, which is largely due to the large distance between the mating plane (along the axis of the pins) and the connector thread. The present invention arose in an effort to design an improved connector which overcomes this drawback.